After I sold off my HQ Prem. project I was looking around for something as a bit of a weekender. I heard about a one owner VH SL/E from a friend and investigated. Turns out the elderly owner had his lic. taken off him as he failed the eye test and he could no longer drive the car. The car had been sitting for quite a while and he had also inadvertedly locked the keys in it six months previous. I showed up to have a look and brought a box full of old keys. 45 min later I was in it and had it running. We agreed on a price and I drove it away. It had everything I needed and nothing I didn't. 202 and Trimatic, no power windows and a dark blue interior. I filled the tank (which promptly leaked about 20L of ULP in the servo driveway) and took it for a rego check. It went straight over the pits and I put my plates on it. It then sat in my garage for about 15 months while I played around with the UC. All along I collected parts as they came up. A VN V8 short motor, VN Group A discs and calipers, a set of silver Walkinshaw rims, King springs, a VL 3.45 LSD BW diff and some ported HQ heads with screw in studs and rollers etc.
aspurch.JPG 81.73K
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aspurch1.JPG 74.74K
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6bay.JPG 120.66K
87 downloadsAfter I blew up my UC engine at the Ultimate Burnout Challenge the wife decided it was time to do something with the Commodore. I had most of the bits, it just needed some work. Before I pulled out the 202 I lowered it, fit the Walky rims and big brakes. I drove it around the block to make sure it was all good and pulled the 202 and tri out and sold them to a forum member. I was only going to wash down the engine bay and fit the V8 but it looked depressing and I decided to throw a coat of paint over the bay. Well that was the plan but it soon went out the window. I ended up hiding wiring, fuel and brake lines, moving the battery and smoothing out a few bumps. This took a while as I was doing it between other paying jobs as time allowed. I did all the work at home and towed it to a friends shop to have the bay sprayed in a booth. The bay came up great (only a minor run I can rub out) but while rolling it off the trailer into the shed I lost control of it, running into a work bench and pushed the panel behind the front bumper in flush with the radiator support and lower skirt. I was devastated to say the least.
I decided to have a go at the engine. I disassembled the short, decked it to zero, gave it a hone and fitted new rings and bearings (yes, standard dished pistons). I put in a baby Waggott solid cam and cheap lifters and an old HE sump I had lying around. I ended up going through 3 sets of HQ heads before I found a set that weren't cracked and fitted the valves, studs, roller rockers and springs from one of the cracked sets after giving them a minor bowl port. I also had a second hand Performer and one of Purple LC's Q jets and some forum sourced pipes. I had recovered mentally from the work bench incident and porta-powered the offending panel out to roughly the right spot and fitted the 304, my spare powerglide (it is actually the glide I damaged in the HQ recased. It is full manual, turbo input etc) and the torque converter out of the UC. The radiator is the 6 cyl one with the outlets rearranged to suit. I also swapped in the diff and mix-and-matched a suitable tailshaft from a VB V8 front and a VL 6 cyl rear. I then modified the OE shifter to work the glide and fired it up !!
runin.JPG 144.16K
82 downloadsA quick lap of the block followed the cam run in and a check of the brakes, power steer and auto before heading to the exhaust shop to fit a second hand eBay 2 1/2" single with a Hooker Aerochamber muffler.
I then had a good look at the car and decided to remove the pinstripe and mouldings as well as fix the many parking dings the visually challenged previous owner put in the body. The boot lid was also damaged where it looked like it had been backed under a tree branch or similar. That is about where I am now, halfway through some minor body work. Its then back to the spray booth for some touchups to the paint before a good buff and reassembly. Then straight to the dyno for a quick tune before changing rego details to V8 and going for that first real drive !
